


Like a Hostage

by femoral



Category: Starfighter (Comic)
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Jobs, Cain has a lot of feelings, Emotionally Repressed, Internal Conflict, M/M, Near Death Experiences
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-05
Updated: 2018-09-05
Packaged: 2019-07-07 06:47:15
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15903027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/femoral/pseuds/femoral
Summary: Cain’s not used to being on his own, not after so many weeks with Abel.He won’t say he misses it, because Cain doesn’t miss anything, but it’s hard. They used to be alone together, sharing the same space, the same breaths. Even between the fucks and the gropes and the kisses, when they’re sitting quietly in the room, Abel working and Cain drinking, they were together.He doesn’t like to be properly alone anymore.





	Like a Hostage

**Author's Note:**

> You might as well just assume that everything I ever write has a song behind it. 
> 
> Feeling like I hit my stride a bit here, feeling a bit less stunted. 
> 
> SO here's another one. 
> 
> Inspired/Based on Hostage by Billie Eilish. 
> 
> [Listen here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38vAeZ75sKc]

Everything smells like fried electrical components and burnt rubber.

There’s acrid smoke in his eyes, blinding him, his eyes watering so violently that tears – fucking _tears_ – are spilling down his cheeks as he rips his helmet off, disconnecting himself from the Reliant.

To Abel’s seat, now, where above all there’s the metallic tang of blood in the air.

It’s awful, it’s awful, there’s blood streaming from beneath Abel’s helmet, spreading into the gaps of his teeth as he pants, open mouthed.

It sounds wet and bubbly in his chest and Cain feels like he’s going to vomit.

Shit, shit, fuck, fuck, _fuck_.

 ______________________

Cain awakes with a jolt and a gasp.

He coughs roughly immediately after, throat rubbed raw from chain-smoking the night before, pushing his sweaty hair from his face as he hacks.

While he wishes it was truly just a nightmare, he knows that it isn’t.

Abel’s space on the mattresses beside him is empty, as it has been for the past four nights. Cain hasn’t touched his things since the day it happened, not even the dirty stinking coffee mug Abel left on the floor above his pillow.

Cain gets up and showers, because he stinks, not looking at any of Abel’s toiletries as he rinses his greasy hair in the water.

He brushes his teeth until his gums bleed and lights a cigarette immediately after, throwing himself at the mattresses and staring at the ceiling.

How long until he visits Abel today?

Not long, he knows. There’s not much for a Fighter to do without a Navigator. They’re not smart enough to have a laboratory in which they work, discuss, plan. He’s not even allowed near the fucking Reliant, with her ruined body and shattered circuitry.

He stubs out his cigarette in a mug – not the last one Abel touched, mind you – pulling on his black tank top and matching pants. Boots next, then his gloves, and then he’s stuffing his packet of cigarettes in his pocket and leaving their bunk with his little black raincloud hovering above his head, watering his bad mood with its miserable rain.

He fucks around in the combat simulator for a while, but it only serves to sour his mood further, because nothing is the same when it feels like he doesn’t have a Navigator to fight for.  
He knows Abel will be okay. Or, at least, the medics have told him that Abel will be okay.

But Cain can’t shake the feeling that everything is ruined when he stares through the small glass window on the door to Abel’s ward room.

Abel’s pale skin is mottled with dark, ugly bruises, one of his eyes still swollen shut but slowly getting better, he thinks. He’s got a broken nose and a missing molar, a few cracked ribs on his right side and apparently his shoulder had dislocated, too.

He looks small and weak laying in his bed, sleepy with sedatives. Cain chews at his thumb nail as he stands beside Abel’s bed, surveying him with something dark and brooding in his black eyes.

He did this. This is his fault.

Abel had been perfect, lined them up and whizzed them around, flying the Reliant like he was born to do it. He’d screamed for Cain to take the shot, the way he always does, dangerous and urgent with an underflow of excitement, of pride, because Cain _always_ took the shot. Because Cain was the best Fighter in the Alliance.

And for some reason, for some stupid fucking reason, Cain had pulled the trigger too late.

They’d taken out the enemy craft, but not before it fired erratically towards them, praying for a clean hit.

And they got it.

Cain felt the Reliant shudder and groan, its pressurising systems under immense stress to keep the vacuum of space from just ripping them apart, suffocating them both.

Somehow Abel had gotten them back on board the _Sleipnir_ , Cain terrified and in shock because what had he done?

“Fucked it,” he mutters to himself, staring down at Abel. “Fucked it all.”

Abel’s eyelids begin to flutter and his eyes begin to roll under the thin skin.

Cain turns on his heel before those eyes open.

Sets his jaw at the soft, surprised noise he hears from Abel as he swings the door shut behind him.

  ______________________

Cain’s not used to being on his own, not after so many weeks with Abel.

He won’t say he misses it, because Cain doesn’t miss anything, but it’s hard. They used to be alone together, sharing the same space, the same breaths. Even between the fucks and the gropes and the kisses, when they’re sitting quietly in the room, Abel working and Cain drinking, they were together.

He doesn’t like to be properly alone anymore.

He’s sitting in a storage container where he usually goes when he needs time to think, because even though Abel’s not in their room anymore it still smells like him, feels like him.

This has to stop.

This weak pining like a lost dog searching for its master, unable to function on its own or put its own stupid ideas together.

He throws his head back and drinks deep from his bottle of vodka, contraband but not hard to find, barely cringing at the taste because there’s much worse in the colonies.

He feels sick when he thinks about Abel, broken and injured, because of him. Something close to guilt, he reckons, coils around nastily in the depths of his gut.

He feels worse when he thinks about what this guilt means.

Why can’t he stop thinking about Abel? He’s just a Navigator. _His_ Navigator, but a Navigator nonetheless. He takes a rough drag from his cigarette and blows the smoke out on an angry breath.

“Why is it all so fucking hard?”

His voice is quiet in the silence of the container. He grinds the heel of his palm roughly into his eye sockets where he can feel tears beginning to prickle.

Why did it have to be him that came out of the Reliant’s wreck practically unscathed? It’s not Abel’s fault that he’s a fucking useless piece of shit Fighter who can’t protect his Navigator, his ship.

He punches the metal wall beside him, not caring when his knuckles split open and fat globs of blood begin to form.

It’s the least he deserves.

  ______________________

He visits Abel again in the morning, because he’s asleep again after having eaten his breakfast.

He never brings anything with him, nothing for Abel at least. He never sits down at his bedside, never tries to reach out and touch him because he’s afraid now that Abel will shatter.

He’s looking better, somewhat. Not under such intensive care now, the threat of a medically induced coma to aid healing getting further and further away.

Cain doesn’t know if he’d stay with Abel if he became a fuckin’ vegetable, so that’s probably for the best.

“Not ‘with’ Abel,” he grunts to himself, brow furrowed as he looks down at his Navigator. He looks fragile, and the need to protect rises in the hollow of Cain’s chest even though it’s _him_ that Abel needs to be protected from.

He tries not to think about how some part of him feels at ease when he’s alone in this room with Abel.

_Because that’s how it’s supposed to be._

He wants to punch himself in the head, get rid of these stupid thoughts that have no purpose.

He grits his teeth together, arms crossed in feigned looseness across his chest despite the fact his muscles are rippling with pent up energy. He doesn’t even know what he’s feeling anymore. He stands there, staring hard at Abel’s face in all its serene, mangled beauty, and part of him wants to keep him forever.

The other part is disgusted that he’s gone so fuckin’ soft.

His inner monologue turning dark and violent is interrupted by the gentle tap of knuckles on Abel’s door.

“Am I interrupting anything?” the medic asks, tone cool and calm because he knows that Cain is unpredictable, volatile, even.

“Does it fuckin’ look like you are?” Cain snarls, turning his head over his shoulder to look at the doctor. “He’s asleep. Not gonna talk to him when he’s fuckin’ asleep. Stupid.”

And then Cain is leaving again, brushing past the medic with fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.

He stalks his way down the hallway, brushing roughly past Deimos – who’s always loitering about the medic bay now, and Cain’s not sure if it’s more for him or Abel. Doesn’t care.

He goes back to their room, stuffs a small flask of vodka into the waistband of his pants, and makes for the open storage container overlooking the galaxies stretched out around them. Alone again, he thinks. Alone without Abel.

  ______________________

It’s around noon (or at least their version of noon) a week later when Deimos comes scurrying up to him in the mess hall. He’s pushing around something that’s supposed to be a meatball but tastes and feels more like a sponge, and he doesn’t bother scooting further down the bench when Deimos sits next to him.

He’s breathless, oddly, his silky hair somewhat dishevelled as those pale grey eyes fix themselves to Cain’s profile.

“What is it, _myshonok_?” Cain asks, his tone bored, forking a meatball roughly into his mouth.  
Deimos leans close to him, lashes fluttering down over his cheek bones as he whispers in Cain’s here. “He’s awake. He’s back in your room.”

Cain just about chokes on the meatball and spits it out onto the table in front of him, wiping the strings of saliva that stick to his chin away on the back of his glove. He doesn’t bother thanking Deimos as he gets up, doesn’t bother putting his tray back to be washed and recycled.

It doesn’t take him long to get to their room, walking quickly enough to not look panicked and urgent but still efficient.

He punches in the code to their door with his thumb and it slides open in front of him with a whir.

There’s no Abel on the bed, no Abel in the _room_ , and Cain wants to deck Deimos in the face so hard his fucking teeth fall out.

He’s practically vibrating with rage and humiliation when he hears Abel’s voice from the bathroom. “Cain?” He calls. “Cain? Is that you?”

And then he’s in the bathroom, crowding around Abel whose arm is finally out of that stupid sling, whose eyes are finally open, who’s smiling up at him with a bruised mouth and Cain’s scar on his lip.

He regains his composure, he has to, leaning down to kiss Abel roughly, hungrily, until he whimpers because Cain’s hurt him _again_. He tries not to let it get to him.  
“Hello princess,” he smirks, hand coming up to cradle Abel’s jaw, thumbing at the freshly shaved skin on his chin. “Did ya miss me?”

Abel throws his arms around Cain, clutching onto him like he’s the only thing in the world that matters, and the dark little being that lives in the back of Cain’s psyche thrums with pleasure.

“Yes,” he gasps, peppering kisses at Cain’s mouth, throat, shoulder, anywhere he can reach. “I missed you so much.” He’s pulling at the hair on the nape of Cain’s neck like he always does when he’s horny and Cain can’t help but to take Abel’s hips and pull them together.

They grind like that for a while, biting at each other’s mouths (Cain making sure to be a little more careful, lest he kill his own boner with visions of Abel half dead and bleeding again).

It’s the way Abel says his name on a whine that makes him break, makes him snatch Abel’s hand and pull him to their makeshift futon in the middle of their room.

He lays him down, real gentle, mindful of the still-cracked ribs and Abel’s tendency to get so cock-hungry that he doesn’t notice much else.

He fingers him open, mouthing at his cock until Abel’s sobbing, begging to be fucked. It’s quieter than normal, his moans a bit breathier, but it doesn’t matter because he still practically bawls when Cain finally sinks himself inside.

He fucks Abel on his back, holding his legs up with his hands in the bends of his knees so that he doesn’t crush him with his weight. Abel’s grasping at the bedsheets, his own mouth, anything, until Cain can feel his hole start fluttering around him.  
Then Abel’s jerking his cock until he comes, hard, on a drawn out sound that ends almost in a wince. Cain does his best to ignore it, pumping into him harder, faster, until he’s pushing his face into the skin of Abel’s calf and gasping, “ _Ah_ , Abel, I’m coming.”

Cain’s the first to move, pulling out of Abel without a word and disappearing into the bathroom to get a warm, wet towel.

He cleans Abel gently, like he’s made of glass, trying to ignore the sappy, love-sick eyes that Abel gives him while he does so. He wipes his cock off with the rag and flings it to the side, laying down beside Abel and lighting a cigarette.

They talk quietly amongst themselves and spend the rest of the afternoon locked away in their room, Cain wringing another two orgasms out of Abel until he’s finally spent and tired.

Alone together, again.

  ______________________

It feels right when he’s with Abel, like he’s somehow never noticed that he was missing a piece until they were assigned together. Abel’s slotted himself into a cosy little spot in Cain’s chest and Cain hadn’t even fucking realised it.

Cain avoids Deimos like the plague, now, but still expects him to tail Abel. He couldn’t take the way the stupid little prick kept bringing up Cain’s behaviour when Abel was practically comatose with sedatives in a hospital bed.  
Deimos had been digging too deeply, plucking at strings that Cain was still trying to tune, picking scabs off of places inside him that had barely healed.

He knows he’s different with Abel, he doesn’t need Deimos reminding him. He’s frustratingly aware of his apparently affliction with his Navigator. The Navigator who he nearly fucking destroyed through his own wrongdoings.

Cain feels like there’s a wormhole in his brain, sucking everything in and chewing it up before spitting it back out in some barely legible jumble. He feels lost.

Even though Abel’s back, Cain still doesn’t feel right. It feels different now, more serious, especially when Abel had sat in his lap and purred that the medic informed him of Cain’s frequent visits.

“I didn’t think you’d want to visit me,” he’d said carefully, mouth pressed to Cain’s neck. Cain only grunted in response, his hand drawing loose circles onto the small of Abel’s back.

He doesn’t know what to do when Abel’s hand snakes across the bed in the morning and tries to lace their fingers together. Sometimes, he obliges him the small pleasure, because he knows that Abel likes it and he knows that he wants Abel to stay.

Sometimes, though, he gets up and leaves to start his day.

This was one of them.

They have a training simulation today at 16:00H, Abel’s first since his discharge from the medical ward. Cain’s been dreading it. He’s not gone near the fighting simulators since the accident, because every time he thinks about it all he can see is Abel, bloodied and barely breathing.

He meets Abel outside the simulator, dressed in their respective fatigues, _tch_ ing quietly when Abel smiles nervously at him. “C’mon princess, let’s fuck up some fake ‘Terons. You’ll do fine.”

And Abel does do fine. He navigates them like nothing’s ever changed, like the accident never happened, and it makes Cain salivate with nausea.

_He’s still so trusting._

Cain tanks, hard, missing multiple shots and trying not to punch his fucking station in frustration. He can’t stop thinking about Abel, strong Abel, smart Abel, who believes in him so much not to get him killed but here they are, dead in the fucking water with ‘Terons closing in all around them.

He bails on the simulator, ripping his helmet off with a guttural snarl. He throws it against the wall, avoiding the eyes of Encke from the observation theatre. He storms out, eyes wild and crazed as he swears to himself, swears at everyone he crosses paths with.

He even swears at Abel when he comes trotting up, his face scrunched with worry and Cain’s scuffed helmet in his hands.

“Fuck off,” he spits, and it’s dripping in venom as he makes his way back to their room, thirsty for vodka and craving a cigarette.  
Abel seems to ignore his vitriol, matching his pace. “What happened, Cain? Are you alright?” And his voice is so meek and sickly sweet that Cain wants to scream.

“No I’m not fucking alright! Leave me alone, Abel.”

Abel falters in the corridor and Cain leaves him behind, going into their bunk to find his booze and cigarettes, not bothering to change out of his fatigues, and flees to the relative safety of his container.

He doesn’t make it out of the room before Abel is blocking the door way, eyes aflame and brow set seriously, glaring up at him.

“Don’t talk to me like that,” he demands, pushing Cain’s helmet roughly against his chest. “It’s rude, and it’s uncalled for.”

Cain rolls his eyes and makes to push past Abel again, throwing his helmet onto the floor behind him. Abel doesn’t budge, his (much weaker) body bunching up into the door frame, hands coming to rest on Cain’s biceps.  
“Please don’t go anywhere,” he asks, and the fire he held in his tone only seconds ago has apparently been extinguished. “Talk to me,” he pleads. “Tell me what’s wrong, what did I do wrong?”

Cain exhales sharply and covers his face with his hands. “ _You_ didn’t do anything wrong. I just can’t, I just fuckin’ can’t stop thinking about you all fucked up in the Reliant with fuckin’ blood everywhere and shit’s all on fire and it’s _my_ fucking fault. ‘Salways my fucking fault.”

He’s still talking into his hands, his voice rough and gravelly with emotion, heart thrumming nervously in his chest because oh, fuck, it’s happening. These weird feelings concerning Abel are all bubbling in the hollow of his throat, fighting with each other to get out.

Maybe he will actually vomit.

But then Abel’s cool hands leave the slick material of his fatigues and elegant fingers wrap gently around his wrists, coaxing Cain’s hands away from his face.

Abel pushes himself onto his toes, pressing soft, chaste kisses to Cain’s mouth, hands moving to cup his face and thumb across his cheek bones.

Cain droops some, some of the wind knocked out of his sails because it feels so good just to be kissed like this. He kisses Abel back, slow and steady, drinking him in, huffing warm air against his cheek.

He could suffocate like this, he thinks. This would be the perfect way to die.

Abel breaks the kiss long enough to push Cain backwards, towards their mattresses, until Cain takes the hint and lays down. Abel’s on top of him then, slow and steady, kissing him the way he needs to be kissed as he begins the arduous task of shucking off their battledress.

It doesn’t take long with practiced fingers.

He kisses at Cain’s chest, wet and open-mouthed, biting at his nipples because it makes him whine and arch.

Licks down his stomach, dipping his tongue into his navel to make him squirm, and then he’s swallowing down his cock in one fell swoop, turning his eyes to Cain’s face because he knows how much he likes it.

“Shit,” Cain breathes, his hand coming to twine itself in Abel’s hair, hips bucking weakly. He lacks his usual dominance, the cocky know-it-all attitude he usually boasts, and Abel kind of likes it.

He sucks him like that for a while, until Cain is twitching, writhing, his hand pulling tight at Abel’s hair. “’Mgonna come,” he warns, staring down at Abel’s pink mouth stretched around his cock. Abel’s black eyes flit up to meet his and then he’s coming, pulsing hot, body bowing upwards as he spills down Abel’s throat.

He barely even notices when Abel slips a lubed finger inside of him, too busy focused on the hot mouth kissing across his balls and nipping at his inner thigh. “Mm, you gonna fuck me, princess?” He asks, and his voice sounds wrecked.

“That’s the plan,” Abel replies, two fingers deep now, scissoring gently, agonisingly slow.

“Better hurry up before I fall asleep,” Cain quips, a languid smirk stretched across his features as he writhes on the bed.

Abel’s brow quirks at what he takes as a challenge, removing his fingers and slicking his dick with lube before pressing himself inside of Cain’s tight heat.

Cain practically whines, his hips canting in small little circles as he tries to take Abel all the way, pushes past the pain that feels like it’s ripping out of his belly button. It doesn’t take long, not after Abel starts to fuck him, bent down over him with Cain’s legs up over his shoulders and his elbows either side of Cain’s head.

“So tight,” Abel groans, his voice breathy, heady in Cain’s ear as he opens himself up to his Navigator.

He fucks him at a steady pace, bottoming out on every thrust, panting kisses against Cain’s mouth because he can, biting his earlobe on a particularly hard thrust just to make him twitch and moan.

He doesn’t last long. He never does when he’s on top (or ever, really), his hips coming to a short, stuttering gait as he comes inside of Cain, breathing hard.

He rests his sweaty forehead against Cain’s shoulder until Cain’s pushing gently at him, apparently still mindful of his ribs. Abel has gotten better with taking the medication prescribed for his pain management, at least, so he doesn’t feel quite so fragile anymore.

“Crushing me, princess,” Cain jokes, rolling Abel off of him and into the sheets beside.

They lay there quietly for a while, Abel’s head resting over the steady beat of Cain’s heart, hand resting on his sternum.

“Cain?” He asks, looking up at the Fighter’s face with worry creasing into his features.

“Mm?”

“You know I don’t blame you for me getting hurt, right?” He asks, and he almost immediately regrets it because Cain tenses up underneath him like he’s been electrocuted.

“Shut up.”

“No, I’m serious!” He argues, and his heart is starting to beat a little faster now because he’s nervous. But he needs Cain to know that he doesn’t resent him for what happened, doesn’t question it, trusts him with his life. “People make mistakes, and I know you would never mean to hurt me, I trust you, and I don’t want you to feel like you’re responsible for anything that happ-”

Cain shoves Abel off his chest roughly before he gets up from the bed, yanking on his casual clothes hurriedly, deliberately. “Shut the fuck up Abel. You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Then he’s snatching his bottle and his packet of cigarettes and running away from his problems. Again.

  ______________________

He thinks he makes it two hours alone in the storage bay before Abel finds him.

He huffs out a breath of cigarette smoke, vision a little hazy with alcohol at this point, annoyed with himself. His head’s all fucked up. He wants to be alone, away from Abel, but he wants Abel to be right here beside him. It makes a migraine threaten at the borders of his skull as he grinds his teeth again.

He gestures to the space beside him for Abel to sit down, and he does, bringing his legs up to his chest like he’s protecting himself. And he should, Cain thinks.

“Sorry for upsetting you,” Abel murmurs quietly, picking up the vodka from its resting place beside Cain’s thigh and taking an acrid gulp. He stifles his cough behind his hand and takes another. Liquid courage, and all that.

Cain turns and looks at him, really looks at him, and Abel feels like he’s being picked apart.

Something inside of Cain seems to shatter. “C’mere,” he mumbles, slinging an arm around Abel’s shoulders and pulling him close. “Let me hold you.”

Abel melts against him, unfolding his legs to rest them sideways across Cain’s lap, resting his cheekbone against Cain’s angular clavicle.

Abel tries not to feel unsettled with Cain’s newfound vulnerability. He knows that the accident messed with Cain’s head, he’s heard it from Deimos and Phobos and practically everybody else on this ship who whispers nasty things behind their backs.

Abel takes a steadying breath, licking his lips quietly and playing with a thread on Cain’s shirt. “I’ll never leave you, you know. I’ll never leave you all alone. Not even after all of this.”

Cain tenses and Abel prepares himself for him to flee again.

But it doesn’t come. Instead, he gets a kiss pressed to the top of his head and a shaky breath rattling out of Cain’s chest.

“Really got you held hostage, hm?” Cain asks, but there’s no malice behind his voice, only something like resignation.

Cain’s insides feel like they’re trying to tie themselves in knots. He feels ashamed at his weakness, that it was so obvious that Abel addressed it point blank. Feels ashamed that, somehow, he’s laid his hooks so deeply into this once-virgin earth boy that he feels like he deserves no better than a poor rat from the Mars colonies.

On the other hand, though, he’s deeply pleased. He feels like he’s succeeded, he’s caught his prey with barely a fight. He knows Bering will be pleased, too, but he feels ill thinking about that right now because they’re suddenly so much more than a mission. It’s gone too far for it to just be the mission, the war.

He tries not to think about it too much as Abel presses a sweet kiss against the line of his jaw.

“You’re stupid, Abel,” he says, matter-of-factly, flicking away his cigarette butt and taking another sip of vodka.

“I know,” Abel replies, a coy smile on his mouth. “But that’s okay. We can be stupid together.”

_Together._ Cain's stomach flips and he feels his heart palpitate.


End file.
